When people identify with their masters, freedom is hard to accept

By David McElroy · May 19, 2011

When King John of England signed the Magna Carta in 1215, it had to be a shock to some of the people who lived under his rule. They had grown up believing that the king had the divine right to do pretty much whatever he pleased, but the upper classes forced King John to offer concessions in certain areas. I’m certain that some people then believed that what was being done to their king was wrong, because they believed what they had been taught — that he had the right to rule.

When slaves were freed after the War Between the States in this country, we’re told that many of them were hesitant to accept the freedom and responsibility that had been given to them. Many of them continued to live on the same plantations — doing the same work for the same people — after they were free.

People have always had trouble with change. Even when change is good for them, they have trouble accepting it. We know that even hostages who have been taken by criminals come to identify with their captors and sympathize with them. This is called the Stockholm Syndrome, named after the first case in which it was identified and studied.

If people have always been this way, why would we assume things are any different today? People accept the existence and rightful supremacy of government power because that’s what they’ve been taught and it’s what they’ve always lived with. Today, we laugh at the idea of swearing allegiance to a king. We are saddened by the thought of slaves who didn’t want to leave their slaveowners. And we typically think the Stockholm Syndrome couldn’t happen to us.
But most people in the world are victims of a political version of the Stockholm Syndrome. We sympathize and identify with the state that seeks to assert its control over us. A few of us are realizing this and breaking free, but most are still deeply enmeshed in bowing before a king and kissing his ring.

For those of us who see that breaking the power of the state is a moral issue, it’s easy to think that if we just explain things to people, they’ll understand and agree. But they won’t. For them, it’s a deep emotional issue. Change isn’t going to happen for most of them. This is one of the many reasons that we have to find our own solutions — outside of the influence and control of those who are still bowing to the “king” in Washington.

Not all of us can leave where we live now, but some of us might be able to. That’s why we have to keep thinking about the free cities and free nations of the future. There are many different models to experiment with, but the first step is accepting that most of “the king’s subjects” won’t be coming with us, no matter what we try.

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There was a time when I was idealistic enough to believe that if a writer expressed his thoughts clearly and simply enough, any bright and honest person would understand his point. I know better now. We all bring so many unconscious assumptions to the things we read that we often see what we expect to see instead of what the writer intended. This is incredibly frustrating to me as a writer, but I’m trying more and more to just say what I need to say — as clearly as I know how — and then ignore the inevitable responses which show that others perceived something which was not intended. I have to write for those who “get” where I’m coming from, not for those who see my words through personal filters that change my meaning. I hope my intentions are clear to you and I hope what I write can be useful to you, but if not, maybe my work just isn’t right for you. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I found out this evening that someone I casually knew killed himself last Wednesday. I didn’t know him well — and I never found him personable — but he had started work a couple of months ago at a restaurant where I go. He was a 26-year-old who struck me as a confused and unhappy person, but I didn’t think much about it since he stayed to himself and resisted my efforts to chat with him. It turns out that he had a history of depression and had a lot of gender confusion. He seemed very androgynous to me and I learned today that he presented himself as female in some situations. He was rejected by a romantic interest last week, so he went to the woods and killed himself. His body wasn’t found for three days. It’s tragic how miserable people around us can be and how we so rarely know the truth about things they struggle with.

I’ve been with people for most of this day, but I feel lonely tonight. I’ve had things on my mind for the last few days that I feel the strong need to talk about. I need someone to share my thoughts with — someone who’s interested in ideas and how they affect us. Someone who gets excited to discover new things and can find joy in seeing new ways those things might change our lives. I feel lonely tonight because I painfully remember what it feels like to have that — and I’m craving that sort of connection. I miss having someone I can call and say, “I’ve been reading something and it’s sparked some thoughts I want to share with you.” Those sorts of conversations have lasted for hours for me in the past — or for thousands of words if it’s an exchange of mail — and it feels wrong that there is nobody who wants to hear such things from me tonight. I used to think being lonely was about being alone, but I understand now it’s a longing for one particular person. The loneliest place to be when you need one person is in a crowd composed of people who cannot be who you need.

I don’t agree with everything the late Neil Postman wrote, but I would argue that no other recent scholar gives coherent structure to the last few hundred years in the way his books do. I’m currently re-reading his book, “Technopoly,” and I’m comforted to have a scholar give structure and definitions to things which I’ve observed and barely understood. I was enough of a technophile when I first read this book that I bristled at much of what it said. I didn’t want him to be right and it was easier to dismiss him as a Luddite. But as I see technology continue to enable an information glut which is changing society for the worse, I find comfort in his explanations for how we got here. I don’t yet know the solutions, but I finally understand the problems more clearly. I suspect that much of what we need to make life more meaningful can be found in things we accidentally threw away in the past to make room for technologies. I strongly urge you to read the book and think about its implications.

I’d like to write a modern version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” — a more cynical one — with a realistic ending for today’s audience. In this new version, the little boy points out on social media that the emperor is naked but nobody listens to him. Instead, everybody keeps posting grander and grander praise for the emperor’s non-existent clothes. The cognitive dissonance makes the people unable to hear the child who tells them the truth, because they’re getting social media praise — likes and so forth — for their lies. The confused child eventually feels so defeated that he shuts up and walks away. He’s so hurt and disappointed by this that he withdraws from the world and spends years in therapy, trying to figure out whether the rest of the world is crazy or if he’s the crazy one. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be that little boy, but few want to hear the truth today. Either I’m crazy or else our culture has gone insane.

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